Thatcher arrested Britain's post-war economic decline. Even if you don't like the rest of what she's done, or how she did it (which I don't) that still makes her much more significant- and competent- than Blair.

by that logic, whoever presides over economic growth is responsible for it, and whoever presides over recession is responsible for it?

Not always untrue, but equally not always true.

If you say something like "Thatcher arrested Britains post-war economic decline" then you must add stuff like "due to her policy of x, which led to y etc" because (although much is subjective) by being that vague makes it impossible to argue/discuss the point in any way.

because I have a real soft spot for Tony Benn, but this is bang on. For example, his interview with Saddam was cringeworthy - if he wasn't prepared to confront him face-to-face over human rights abuses etc., he shouldn't have met him at all.

The thing about people like Tony Benn is that they are a consumable form of intellectual laziness for intellectually lazy people who do things like watch Question Time and think 'yes! why don't we end poverty? why can't we have peace?' and remember that it's all the fault of those scheming evil politicians

Im not saying that it should be forbidden to admire individuals from other political parties, but its something he said in your spitting thread (which was public) which (added to past posts) leads me to the conclusion that he might come across as being a bit 'unusually' positive towards thatcher.

Which is interesting.....Im not being entirely negative here, although you all know how i regard her. But i do think that party politics is damagingly bipolar, and I do think that cross fertilization can make for more fecund results.

and as soon as anyone steps out of a 2-dimensional view of "yeah, that person's good" or "yeah, that person's evil" they seem to start being criticised or accused of being unfaithful to their own ideals.

While she didn't personally come along and do that, she changed this country so that was a reality.

Whether we would have ended up annexed by the USSR if she hadn't or whatever, it was clear growing up in the 80s and also looking at the way things changed during that period that she allowed consumerism to run wild and to create a society that was more about the latest things.

It's not that anyone wasn't greedy or selfish before: they were, but she provided them with the opportunity to put that greed/selfishness to good use, to give people the chance to rise by stepping upon others.

but dont you think that she encouraged and envangelised selfishness beyond the degree that it might have gone anyway? Just because she didnt invent the attributes we accuse her of instilling, does it not mean that she might have encouraged the speed or degree of the change?

Actually this is what I wanted to try to get out of you...there may be truth to what you say, but the way that you tens to refute people who suggest that she did change attitude seems to suggest that you dont even think that part of the attitudes was due to her active advocacy and fervour for change, ....do you think perhaps she embraced inevitable change , yet carried it further using the momentum of the inevitable change?

You see what I was trying to get out of you is this.....you say things like 'it is total bullshit'

I suppose im taking you to task in that you dont instead say, 'this is not quite the truth, she embraced change but also caried it further' or at least an admission that given her fervour it was understandable that the conclusion that she caussed the change is understandable